One Small Step
by bibliophilea
Summary: Danny remembers learning about space. But his first memories of space don't count. ghostfiish's Space AU. Inspired by Break of Reality's TEN Album, and by a post by scrollingdown. A gift for trash-aged-like-fine-wine on tumblr for the Holiday Truce 2019.


**A gift for trash-aged-like-fine-wine on tumblr. Inspired by ghostfiish's Space AU on tumblr; by Break of Reality's TEN album ( album/ten-2014); and by scrollingdown's space au post on tumblr ( post/115409196323/so-ive-been-suddenly-thinking-about-space-au-as)**

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Danny remembers learning about space.

He remembers laying down on his back and gazing up at the stars projected on his ceiling and walls, dreaming of soaring among them.

He remembers his mother holding him close, telling him the stories of the constellations - of Asiris, the great teacher who taught his people how to fly, and of Halphoruns, the hero who stole a piece of the heavens above to bless them with the ability to experience the tranquility and wonder of space directly - a gift, his mother had said, that felt like the freedom of the infinite and the safety of the womb.

He remembers his father flying with him to the uppermost outskirts of the city - where the trees were tall and the foliage was thick and the floating islands were small, tethered to the trees where their roots met the vines that crisscrossed the canopy. His father would bring him to the largest of those islands - barely an acre of grass and dirt, but a whole planet to run and play through to his young eyes. And as their star set and the moons and the stars beyond made themselves known, he would lay next to his father, who would point to the spots of light peppering the night sky and tell him about the wonders and marvels and sheer plethora of _life_ that lit the night, so far away, yet so close he could almost touch it when his father spoke.

Space was a garden, he remembers learning. Teeming with life, every pinprick of light and every swath of darkness vast with possibilities, and every living being tending to that garden. His people held space at the core of their being - they were a part of the universe and the universe in turn was a part of them, their heaviest of atoms forged in the hearts of stars that had died long ago, and yet lived through them. His memories of his first home are inseparable from his first impressions of space.

But Danny's first memories of space itself don't count.

They are memories of the world tearing itself apart. The ground beneath him cracking and shattering, its upheaval screeching and roaring as though the planet itself were screaming.

They are memories of fleeing and terror and flying further and faster and higher than he'd ever been allowed to - not because he could, but because he had no choice, because people were dying and the world was ending and the only safety was space.

They are memories of space itself holding no comfort - not when he could hear the cries of his people echoing across his mind; not when he could feel the heat of the core of his home spilling out from itself, exploding from the cracks and searing the universe with bright green-white light he couldn't bear to look at even from the island he had hidden behind; not when the stars, which had seemed so close not so long ago, only a step away, suddenly felt very, very far.

They are memories of a world - his home - the only place he'd ever known - being ripped apart, piece by piece, molecule by molecule, in violent convulsions that destroyed his planet and his people and his culture and left him screaming in the aftermath - screaming along with his people and his planet, screaming and screaming and screaming until he was the only one left to scream.

In those hours before the Fentons found him, he learned the horror of the death of his world; the loneliness of his people's screams dwindling until he could only feel his own; the terror of realizing he was truly alone in the vastness of space, that he could not do anything to save himself, that no one was coming for him, that he was destined to die alone.

This was not freedom, or safety, or life. This was not space.

This does not deserve to be remembered as space.

So Danny doesn't. He locks it away in a box called The Incident, and he tries not to think about it. It's over. It's done. There's nothing he can do.

And if he holds a little too tightly to the armrests when turbulence jolts the transport pod as it roughly shoves against the atmosphere, well, no one likes transport pod travel, so it's not like he's the only one.

And if he wakes from a nightmare with tears in his eyes, holding back a scream that could shake the barracks...

Well.

He knows how to blot his eyes so the unshed tears don't ruin the make up hiding the green of his skin. And he knows how to sneak soundlessly to the galley to grab some tea. The scent - chamomile and jasmine - puts him at ease, puts him just a step away from his first home. And the view from the window is stunning. If he leans at just the right angle, he can see the constellation where his home used to be. It quells the yearning ache in his heart, at least a little bit, to know the light of his home still shines upon him.

_This,_ he thinks. _This is space._

Not The Incident.

_Never The Incident._

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Danny stands at the heart of the airlock. The artificial gravity unnerves him, so he ignores it - takes a breath and reaches for his core, for the small piece of space he holds in his heart, and floats for the first time since joining the space corps. Harder to ignore are the calls from his crew - the pleading yips from Cujo, the angry shouts from Sam, the worried cries from Kwan. Danny can't face them right now - if he does, he's afraid he might go back.

And for the sake of them all, there can be no turning back.

Tucker is busy fixing the computer controlling oxygen storage and circulation from the asteroid strike - otherwise he'd be just outside the airlock, too, telling him what a dumbass he is - but Danny knows that even with all their help from the inside, they don't have enough time. Not when Danny could see the leak from the portal outside the command center, opposite from the only working airlock left on the ship.

After a quick diagnostics, Danny had dashed from the room, nearly flying down the corridors to reach the airlock, his crewmates' cries for him to _stop,_ to _think things through,_ to _remember they didn't have any working helmets_ echoing behind him. He had managed to shut the airlock and manually lock it behind him before his crewmates could follow him in.

He shifts the space in his core and floats to the airlock controls - a separate system from the life system controls, thank goodness, or else Tucker would have interfered - and sets the airlock to vent. It takes about 30 seconds, and he counts every single one of them, only just remembering to remove his contacts before the lenses can warp and scratch his eyes.

The hiss of the airlock dies, and the sound of his crewmates dies with it as the last of the air empties from the small space. Danny is tempted to look back, to make sure they're still there, but he's afraid of what he might see. Any chance of pretending to be human is gone. His makeup and hair dye may cover him, but the facade is shattered, disintegrated and swept away like so many air molecules scattered into the vacuum of space.

Danny floats down to the outer door of the airlock and grabs the manual override keeping the door shut. With the strength of two humans, he forces the lock open, straining against both the physical system in place and the vacuum of space it's designed to guard against. It takes him 42 seconds, and he counts every one of them, as well - every second another spurt of precious oxygen lost to the void.

But finally, with one last strain and a click, the door opens. Danny is, for the first time since The Incident, completely exposed to the vacuum of space.

He feels the air in his lungs pressing for release, and he lets it go, feeling rather than hearing the whisper as it escapes through his mouth and nose. He can't help it as he floats to the edge of the airlock, his feet alighting on smooth metal. He can't help but stare at the vastness of space, unfiltered by a helmet full of air - at the pinpricks of light and swatches of blackness, all of it teeming with just as much life as his father had said there was, so many years ago, he knows. His gaze sweeps from the constellation that holds Earth, his second home - up to the cluster of galaxies that hold Florana - across to the light of his first home, a physical remnant of the memory of his people, crying out into the void that they were there once, that they existed, that they lived on through the light that passed and through their only surviving son.

_This,_ he thinks. _This is space._

He blinks back tears. Remembers his mission. He does not know how many seconds have passed, but he is certain he's spent enough time remembering his people. There will be time for that later - for now, he has to plot the most efficient path to the oxygen leak. For now, he has to save his crewmates - his friends - his family.

He turns his head from his first home, casting his gaze along the side of the ship, preparing himself to fly through space for the first time.

One small step for a man...

_He leaps._

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**Thank you for reading. Any and all feedback is appreciated.**


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